Appendix B — Quarto Website

This note is a step-by-step guide to publishing on Quarto Pub with RStudio.

B.1 Installation

Install Quarto

  • Download Quarto: Go to Quarto website and download the installer for your operating system (Windows/macOS/Linux).

  • Run the Installer: Follow the prompts to install Quarto. This adds the quarto command-line tool to your system.

Install the Quarto R Package

  • Open RStudio
  • Install the Quarto R package by running the following command in the console:
install.packages("quarto")
  • Restart RStudio to ensure the Quarto integration works properly.

Verify Installation

  • Open the Terminal pane in RStudio (not Console).
  • Type quarto check and press Enter.
  • Confirm that Quarto and required dependencies (e.g., Pandoc) are installed. Fix any issues if prompted.

Create a Quarto Pub Account

  • Go to Quarto Pub and sign up for a free account.
  • Verify your email to activate the account.

B.2 Quarto Publish with RStudio

Create a New Quarto Website Project

  • In RStudio, go to File > New Project > New Directory > Quarto Website.
  • Name your project (e.g., firstname-website) and choose a save location (e.g., under your djr folder).
  • Click Create Project: This generates a basic website template with index.qmd and about.qmd.
Quarto Website Structure
  • .Rproj: RStudio project file
  • index.qmd: Homepage content
  • about.qmd: About page content
  • _quarto.yml: Site configuration settings
  • styles.css: Custom CSS styles

Edit Website Content

  • Edit index.qmd to add content to your homepage.
  • Edit about.qmd to add an about page.
  • Modify the _quarto.yml file to configure site settings (title, navigation, theme).

Preview Your Website Locally

  • Click the Render button in RStudio to preview your website.

Publish Your Website

Tip

Use your direction keys to navigate and select options, and press Enter to confirm your choices.

  • Open the Terminal pane in RStudio.
  • Type quarto publish and press Enter.
  • Provider?: Select Quarto Pub as your publishing destination.
  • Authorize the connection to Quarto Pub.
  • Publishing with account?: Confirm your Quarto pub account.
  • Site name?: Confirm your site name.
  • Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the publishing process.

View Your Published Website

  • Once the publishing process is complete, your website will be live at https://quartopub.com/yourusername/yourprojectname.
  • Share the link with others to showcase your work!

B.3 Updating Quarto Website

B.4 Updating Content

  • To update your website, make changes to your .qmd files and re-publish using quarto publish.
  • Publish updates to: Confirm site link and press Enter.
  • Your website will be automatically updated with the new content.

Website Structure

Let’s say if you want your website have 4 pages:

  • Home page to show the content of index.qmd
  • About page to show the content of about.qmd
  • Data Cleaning to show the content of data-cleaning.qmd
  • Data Analysis to show the content of data-analysis.qmd

First, in addition to the existing index.qmd and about.qmd, you need to create two new .qmd files:

  • data-cleaning.qmd
  • data-analysis.qmd.

Then, you need to modify the _quarto.yml file to add the new pages to the navigation bar.

  • Open _quarto.yml in RStudio.

  • Revise your nav_bar section to include the new pages:

nav_bar:
  - text: Home
    href: index.html
  - text: About
    href: about.html
  - text: Data Cleaning
    href: data-cleaning.html
  - text: Data Analysis
    href: data-analysis.html
  • Save the _quarto.yml file.
  • Click the Render button in RStudio to preview your updated website.
  • Publish your updated website using quarto publish.
Important

Each .qmd file should be self-contained. This means: (1) Load all required packages using library() at the top of each file. (2) Load any data needed directly in that file. Do not assume code from other .qmd files will run before this one.

B.5 Remove Quarto Webiste

  • Go to your Quarto Pub account.
  • Click on the project you want to delete.
  • Click Delete Site to remove the website from Quarto Pub.